


hold me tight (or don't)

by ClementineKitten



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (but let it be known i was aiming for kind of romantic), (kind of), Angst, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Relationship can be read as romantic or platonic, akechi is alive, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 00:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten
Summary: i just can't pretend that we were lovers firstconfidants but never friendswere we ever friends?Or, Akira visits Akechi in the hospital.





	hold me tight (or don't)

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics in the summary belong to the fall out boy song after which this fanfic is titled!

His face is turned away the moment Akira enters his hospital room.

He lets the door close with a soft click, then walks towards the bed. The air in the room is crisp, clean-- the window is opened, just the slightest amount, and the boy in the bed is looking out of it. The breeze musses with his hair.

"Akechi," Akira murmurs. Perhaps the correct verb would be '_breathes._' He breathes in the fresh air of Akechi's hospital room, he breathes out his surname. Quietly, deliberately. 

Akira didn't really have a plan for what he'd do when he saw Akechi. When his head were to turn, when his body was to shift… He had no idea how to react or what to say.

All he knew was that he was in this room for a reason.

Slowly, Akechi turns to face Akira. And he looks…

The same.

Well, almost. His hair is a little shorter and the bags under his eyes look a little less prominent, but everything is there. The curve of his lips, the slope of his cheeks, the shape of his eyelashes. So familiar, and yet so distant, all features highlighted by soft white light streaming through the glass panes.

He smiles. A little weakly, but he smiles nonetheless. 

"You beat him." Simple words, but they say so much, and they're in his voice. They're coming from his mouth.

Akira finally exhales.

"Yeah." His chest buzzes. "Yeah, we did."

"We…" Akechi repeats. "Is it only you here?"

"Yeah." There's a stool next to the bedside, presumably for nurses or doctors. Akira moves towards it. "We assumed it would be too overwhelming for all of us to visit as soon as you got the clear."

"You assumed right." Akechi looks down at his blanket. "I'm not sure why you're here in the first place."

Akira's eyes widen. 

"You think the whole self sacrificial, '_take care of him in my stead _' thing followed by your near death would make us go 'yeah, screw that guy, we're never gonna talk to him again'?" 

"I'd say _ yes_, but… I suppose that's not entirely in your character, now, is it?" He's smiling. He's always giving a smile, something that Akira hadn't realized meant he was hiding something until it was too late.

"Uh, yeah." 

What Akira meant to say was _ there's so much we need to talk about_, or _ did you really care about us_, or _ why did you risk your life for us_, or--

"You're the first one to visit.” Akechi cuts off his spiraling thoughts. “I mean, I was only just told that visitors were allowed in.”

“Sae came and told us. She’s waiting outside until I’m done.”

Akechi’s expression changes. “Sae-san…” he whispers, his face contorted with something like anger and regret-- or something in between. Akira can’t exactly read it, but he continues to speak anyways.

“So, Shidou’s gone.”

This is… well, strange. No one said it would be normal, to meet and speak with Akechi like this. But it’s even odder than Akira would think to imagine, and he feels as if he needs to hug and slap Akechi. Mostly the former, perhaps the latter. The cognitive dissonance pulls his chest apart and fills his lungs with icy water. He’s drowning, but he’s nowhere near the water-- in spite of that, it sloshes around in him, pulling him in deeper. It tugs and it _ aches. _

“Yeah, he is.” 

It had been months since Shidou's heart had been changed. And if had been about one since Sae had showed up to LeBlanc to tell the former Phantom Thieves that Akechi was in the hospital and that he was stable.

Needless to say, the café was quickly put into uproar with screams and tears and confusion.

So much had passed since then, other than Shidou's defeat. The lot of them had defeated Yaldabaoth, and enjoyed their soft denouement, and now Akira was sitting in Akechi's room, like he was paying a due, obligated to come and say "_hey, our lives were ruined by the same guy and you kind of wrecked my little sister and my friend's lives, too, but for some reason I'm still attached to you," _before leaving for his home town. 

"Thank you," Akechi murmurs. "I don't really have the right to say it, but even I feel relieved now that he's been taken care of."

"Makes a few of us."

An uncomfortable silence builds. Akira… Really didn't know what he could say to Akechi, but even in this prolonged moment of vulnerability, the dead boy walking doesn't break, doesn't waver, simply stares blankly ahead.

"What are you going to do after this?" he asks Akira. "It's been almost a year since you started at Shujin." 

Akira's gaze falls to Akechi's hands as he grips the fabric of his blanket. There's thick bandages wrapped around his wrists and forearms, and the sight of it makes Akira's blood turn to ice, skin tingling. Was it only a precaution, or…?

"Well, I'm going back home soon." Akira looks up, frowning. It wasn't like there weren't any aspects of his old town that he missed, but after his year in Yongen-Jaya, heading back to a house with parents who sent him to live with some stranger for a year was… less than appealing. 

He had a family here, one that he had created for himself, filled with those who loved him and whom he loved in return. 

The whole situation left him grateful for all his confidants and embittered at the prospect of leaving.

"Shouldn't you be spending your short time left with your teammates?"

Akira smiles wanly. "What if I still considered you a teammate, even after all this?"

Akechi returns his expression with the same amount of sardonic sorrow. "I'd call you a damn fool, Kurusu Akira-kun."

"Not the first time I've been called that." 

The brunette sighs heavily. "What are you even doing here, Kurusu-kun? You could've just said Shidou's done and left. There's no reason to stay."

"Sorry, am I being an inconvenience?" Akira says sharply, his words slicing through the stilted, falsely amicable energy of the room. His lip curls in tandem with his frustration flaring to life. "What are you planning to do? Get out of the hospital, shut yourself out again, and become a pawn again?" 

Akechi's eyes flash. "You know just as well as I do what a manipulative man Shidou is."

The stool squeaks across the hospital floor as Akira leans forward. "You killed Haru's father and Futaba's mother. And who knows how many more?" He's losing his cool, he's aware. He kept up his confident, level-headed persona pretty well, but as conflicting as his feelings for Akechi were, it didn't change the solid fact that he had ruined lives. He turned his damn sister into a PTSD-ridden recluse, for God's sake. 

Had his teammates been worried about this type of outcome? The people who had seen how he acts in Palaces, when the façade worn in his daily life is ripped away? 

He had called them all over to LeBlanc, feeling it was only fitting for him to tell them of his plans to visit Akechi. Ryuji's eyebrows had knit, gaze softening inexplicably. Ann had looked down at her wrung hands, and Yusuke had gently touched his side, tipping his head while his bangs fell over his eyes. Makoto had remained silent, thumb to her teeth. Futaba's hands had wrapped around his arm, pulling herself close and looking at her feet, while Haru lifted her fingers to her lips, covering any expression they could have formed.

Were their anxieties warranted?

"I _ know, _Kurusu-kun. I've been doing nothing in this damn hospital but think. I'm a murderer. I regret a lot of things. Is that all you came here to tell me?" Akechi is clearly struggling to keep his voice from wavering with anger. "When I'm discharged, I'm going to prison. No way I'm getting out of that."

Different emotions pull at Akira's chest, and his heart hiccups. He wishes this was easier, wishes with a snap of a finger he could bring them into a world without this type of strife, without all this hurt, without the rising, guttural feeling that threatens to bubble over in him when he looks into Akechi's ruddy eyes, which seem deep with some semblance of mournfulness. 

His breath catches in his lungs, and he realizes this desire to make everything right, make everything easier, was exactly what Yaldabaoth fed off of, drinking up their futility like it was Ambrosia. He tightens his jaw, both in refusal and in frustration, and glares at Akechi.

_ Screw _that God of desire. He lived on no one's accord save his own.

He feels distinctly saddened. His flare of fury seems to ebb into this slow, dormant _ want _ to help him.

"You never had a father, but you took that same relationship away from others, you know that, Akechi? You were so blinded by revenge that you became…" Akira stops short of saying _ just like Shidou. _

_ You're everything you hated. _

"'Like him' is what you were going to finish off with, correct, Kurusu-kun?" 

_ Does that make you satisfied? _

"At the end of it all, I'm still the same kid who wanted attention."

_ I wish we'd met earlier. _

"Akechi, I…"

_ Could I have ended up like you if I had never run into Ryuji? _

"I can't forgive you for what you did." After fishing desperately for words, it's the only thing Akira manages to string together. "But still, I meant what I said at the start. At the end of it all… You risked it all to save _ us._"

"Too little, too late, I'm afraid," Akechi says bitterly.

"Did you ever care about us? Morgana commented that, well, you didn't hate me. Was that true?" Akira wants-- no, he needs to know.

Akechi shifts in his bed, staring down at his hands. "What do you think?" 

Several moments of silence follow. Akira pushes up his glasses, feeling like he needs to do something with his hands. "Yusuke said something after you… '_died. _'" He makes air quotes. "That he thought he could have turned out like you, if it wasn't for the Phantom Thieves."

"Turned out like me, huh…" Akechi sighs. "You've all faced your fair share of trauma, haven't you?"

"Yeah," Akira mumbles drily.

Akechi stares out the window blankly. "You should go, Kurusu-kun," he repeats after some time, his voice heavy, as if with defeat. "It's good to know you're well."

"I…" Akira swallows, his throat thick. "Yeah."

But he doesn't get up.

"I wanted to see you, you know," Akira says. "Make of that what you will."

Akechi's fumbles with the edges of his clean white sheets. "Maybe we'll meet again," he drawls. "In some years." 

"I'll wait," Akira says suddenly. Akechi looks up at him, eyes wide, and blinks.

"Why?"

Akira feels that same flicker of frustration be stoked by the response. "Closure, I guess." He shrugs. "I'm not getting it now."

"I don't know how long my sentence will be," Akechi tells him. 

"Still." A weird sense of longing, of fear, of anger, claws at Akira's chest. "Once you've grown out of your shadow…" 

Akechi prompts him. "You'll be waiting?" There's a lilt of incredulity in his words.

"Sounds right to me." Akira's lips pull up in a caricature of a smile, and he stares straight into Akechi's eyes.

_ I'm not the one you need to apologize to. _

The once detective gives his head a shake. "I'll go crazy trying to understand you, Kurusu-kun."

Akira doesn't have a response to that.

"I'll see you later," is what he says instead, standing up as his stool whines against the pristine floor. "Alright?"

"Good day, Kurusu-kun."

A little reluctantly, Akira turns slowly, heading to the door of the room. Akechi doesn't watch him go, can't bear to watch him go, despite everything, so he glares out his window, into a sky that seems inappropriately bright, as if it held the answers he wished to take a hold of himself. 

The door shuts, and Akechi is alone again, but strangely enough, his chest feels a little lighter than it has in some days.

_ I'll wait. _

And the day dissipates. 

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written these two before and i have no idea how to characterize akira other than chaotic gay, so i hope this was good for a first attempt!  
i wanted to write something for one of my fave akira pairs (i'm so soft for akeshu and shukita tbh) and this is kind of my offering to the atlus gods to let me date the boys in p5r  
thanks for reading!


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